Even before the flood swept away a lifetime of cherished institutions, New Orleanians were practiced in the mourning of lost icons.

Times-Picayune archiveIn 2006, when it looked like Camellia Grill might not return, anxious regulars wallpapered the temple of late-night dining with pleas on Post-it notes. The restaurant reopened in 2007.

In what other place would the long-ago loss of a grocery store or a pharmacy be cause for such heartache? But here, the pain of Schwegmann’s demise and K&B’s buyout still seems fresh.

Perhaps it’s because of New Orleans’ well-documented insularity, its high proportion of native-born citizens or their penchant for looking in the rearview mirror.

Whatever the reason, New Orleanians seem to have an almost sacred attachment to clubs, bars, po-boy shops, churches, schools and playgrounds.

“Tradition is a cultural heirloom that people in this community will pass from one generation to the next,” said Xavier University sociologist Silas Lee. “And they can be very aggressive about protecting some aspects of tradition.”

While several of the city’s signature institutions have disappeared over the years, Hurricane Katrina snuffed out a bunch of them in a flash.

Today, much of New Orleans’ frayed urban fabric has been restored. But it doesn’t look quite the same. Some places appear to be gone forever. Others have been reimagined, taking on a new form in a new location. And new ones have sprung from the wreckage, vying for a spot on the mental map of cultural shrines that every New Orleanian carries with them.

Part of the New Orleans Centre mall next to the Superdome has been leveled and replaced by a 60,000-square-foot party zone for sports fans. The Fairmont Hotel reopened last year under the Roosevelt moniker, the name it held from 1923 to 1965. And while the catfish-and-potato-salad dinners at Barrows in Hollygrove are gone, the gumbo at Dooky Chase on Orleans Avenue is back.

In a town where food is love, the looming death of a restaurant — or even the departure of a beloved waiter — can cause considerable psychological damage. Life without a favorite eatery means more than missing out on a perfect dish: It’s the loss of a place where memories were made.

Times-Picayune archiveKEVIN ZANSLER / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE
The opening night of the Blue Room at the Roosevelt Hotel in July, 2009.

In 2006, when it looked like Camellia Grill might not return, anxious regulars wallpapered the temple of late-night dining with Post-it notes — some penned on heart-shaped paper.

Some of the messages were simple, declarative sentences: “I miss all the smoke and grease and shouting across the room.” Others were poetic: “Yes, I long for that burger on the soft, squishy bun. The relish and onion and the straw-serving fun.”

Order was finally restored in April 2007, when new owners resurrected the greasy spoon, complete with signature white-cloth napkins and native lingo (“moo juice” for milk, “burn one” for a well-done burger).

There was no such happy ending for devotees of Ruth’s Chris steakhouse on North Broad Street, for decades the ultimate see-and-be-seen spot for the city’s movers, shakers and dealmakers.

“It was the hub of the political scene, a who’s who,” said veteran political consultant Bill Schultz. “It’s where you brought clients to meet mayors, judges and congressmen.

“Instead of playing golf, those of us who didn’t have time to knock a ball around, we did our deals at Ruth’s over lunch or over dinner. It was the golf game that never got rained out.”

Schultz operated “a quasi office” in the main dining room for years. “Guys like me had their own tables,” he said. “Mine were No. 11 or No. 4 — in the corners.”

Ruth’s had its own set of customs. Seats for the Friday political lollapalooza before every big election required reservations months in advance. The Monday after ballots were tallied, winners got steaks with all the trimmings, while losers got red beans and rice.

Since 2005, the political class has searched in vain for an alternative to the shuttered Mid-City landmark, set to become a neighborhood health center.

The Ruth’s chain, which was founded in New Orleans in 1965 by Ruth Fertel, has long operated in Metairie. And in 2008, the company opened a new franchise in the Harrah’s Hotel downtown.

But nothing has filled the void.

“We keep trying,” Schultz said, “but we’ve never recaptured what we had there.”

Crumbling aftershocks

Some New Orleans institutions survived Katrina just fine, only to become collateral damage in the aftershocks that followed.

Take St. Henry’s Catholic Church, padlocked by the Archdiocese of New Orleans in 2008 as part of a vast reorganization after Katrina. Defiant parishioners, already coping with the painful loss of homes and family members, drew a line in the sand.

Eliot Kamenitz, The Times-PicayuneCongregation members of Our Lady of Good Counsel and St. Henry's, the two Catholic churches closed by the Archdiocese of New Orleans after the storm, hold weekly Rosaries on the steps of the closed St. Henry's.

“It was sad because so many people had such deep roots there,” said Alden Hagardorn, a leader of the resistance movement, which staged a lengthy sit-in to keep the 153-year-old church open. “So many of our older parishioners who had been baptized at St. Henry wanted to be buried there.

“A lot of us felt offended and some drifted away from their faith. After the shock and anger wore off, there were feelings of embarrassment that the church hierarchy had turned its back on them.”

The drama ensued after then-Archbishop Alfred Hughes ordered the region’s 142 parishes reduced to 108, largely to consolidate parishes thinned out by Katrina. The St. Henry community rejected the argument, arguing that they had survived the storm intact and reasonably solvent. For 72 days, parishioners occupied the church around the clock, until they were forced out by police in January 2009.

Emotions have cooled somewhat since new Archbishop Gregory Aymond agreed in February to fulfill a St. Henry parishioner’s dying wish to be buried there. Four subsequent funerals have taken place there.

And in July, St. Henry welcomed a standing-room-only crowd of more than 400 for its first post-Katrina Mass, in honor of its namesake’s feast day. Parishioners continue to meet on the steps every Sunday morning to pray the rosary.

While the St. Henry faithful have not achieved their ultimate goal, Hagardorn said the church community is buoyed by the improved line of communication.

“We don’t feel they will say you can reopen as a parish,” he said. “But no one is saying you’re closed, get lost, don’t call us any more. There is a middle ground and we’re working toward something. We just haven’t defined what that something is.”

Hagardorn said Aymond “has given us hope that we are all working in good faith. … We no longer have the fear that we will drive by one day and see that our church has become a parking lot.”

Reinventing themselves

St. Henry’s remains a physical landmark, though the church is in a kind of metaphysical limbo. Some other New Orleans institutions have been wiped from the map, only to reinvent themselves in a new location.

Perhaps the most dramatic example is Holy Cross School, which gave its name to the section of the 9th Ward that it occupied for 135 years. The school picked up stakes after the storm and moved to Gentilly; enrollment is expected to soon top 1,000.
Headmaster Charles DiGange, a former student and teacher, vividly remembers the misgivings he had about the December 2005 decision to relocate.

John McCusker, The Times-PicayuneThe historic Holy Cross gazebo sits on the school's new campus on Paris Avenue.

“I grew up in that neighborhood,” DiGange said. “I went to grammar school on the other side of the Industrial Canal. It was hard for me to accept the fact that we were basically moving out of a place where I spent my adolescent years and much of my adulthood as a faculty member and administrator. It was tough to accept it was going to go away.”

Last week, DiGange recalled a heart-to-heart he had with Brother Donald Blauvelt, the regional supervisor of the Holy Cross order.

“He said, ‘I know you’re upset. But you have to look at it this way: Do you want try to save a campus or save the mission of Holy Cross education in New Orleans, which has been going on since 1849?’

“From that moment forward, I have not looked back.”

The decision to move came as classes resumed in trailers on the old Dauphine Street campus. Some members of the Holy Cross family raised questions about whether the new home would honor the memory of the original. And preservationists voiced concerns that St. Frances Cabrini Church and two schools would be razed to make way for the new school.

“Our architects, who were Holy Cross graduates, knew the importance of history and heritage and tradition,” DiGange said. “The new administration building is an exact replica of the old one, the brick work is the same, the iron work is same.

“It was done to help carry the same feel of the old campus. We were famous for our beautiful oak trees; we now have just as many, if not more.”

Details, from the picnic tables to the gazebo to the victory bell, also have been replicated.

“When older alums from the ’40s and ’50s step on campus, most of them break down in tears,” DiGange said. “They say they feel like they’re looking at the old building. They thought it was gone, but it’s not. Their old school didn’t go away.”

subhed

With Katrina’s flooding causing so much devastation, of course, much of the city has been remade in ways that are completely unfamiliar to hidebound New Orleanians.

The area around Canal Street and Carrollton Avenue, for instance, is home to a number of new Latin-American restaurants, an outgrowth of the wave of Hispanic laborers who came to help rebuild the broken city.

Lakeview’s Harrison Avenue has a slew of new businesses, many of which weren’t there before the storm. A couple of new public schools have been built, the first ones in years, and more will follow, thanks to the $1.8 billion settlement announced by FEMA this week.